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token—the dagger brooch she wore pinned inside the waistband of her skirt. Then she crept out of the beech grove. The matted grass was damp and springy beneath her bare feet, and her anklets of cheap tin clicked softly with each step. Her skirts, constructed of pieced-together bits of fabric, brushed the ground.
    After five years of living among the gypsies of England, she had grown accustomed to looking like a beggarwoman—and to behaving like one when necessary. She accepted her lot with a sort of weary resignation that belied the purpose that still burned in her heart.
    Never had she forgotten her identity: Juliana Romanov, daughter of a nobleman, betrothed to a boyar. One day, she vowed, she would return to her home. She wouldfind the men who had murdered her family. She would see the killers brought to justice.
    It was a grand undertaking for a penniless girl. The early months in England had been almost hopelessly hard. She and Laszlo, who posed as her father, had bartered her clothes and jewels, bit by bit, on the long journey to England. She had arrived with nothing save her precious brooch, the glittering jewel encircled by twelve matched pearls, the secret blade inside, and the Romanov motto etched in Cyrillic characters on the back: Blood, vows and honor .
    It was her last link with the privileged girl she had been. Never would she trade it away.
    In time, the shock of losing her family had become a dull, constant ache. Juliana threw herself into her new life with the same determined concentration that had so pleased her riding and dancing masters, her tutor and music teacher, in Novgorod.
    She had learned how to barter for a horse in apparently ill health, heal the animal, conceal its defects, and then sell it back to the Gaje for profit. How to appear at a market square looking like the most bedraggled, afflicted of creatures, so filthy that people gave her coin simply to be rid of her. How to perform breathtaking carnival tricks on horseback and afterward, with a lazy, seductive smile, collect coins thrown by her rapt spectators.
    Life might have gone on like this indefinitely, but for Rodion.
    Juliana shuddered as she thought of him—young, crudely handsome, glaring across the campfire at her with a sort of cruel possessiveness hard on his features.
    The inevitable marriage proposal had come last night. Laszlo had advised her to accept Rodion. Unlike her,Laszlo had long since surrendered any dreams of returning to the old country.
    Not so Juliana.
    Rodion’s plans had spurred her on her quest. The time had come to leave the gypsy train, to present herself to the king of England and request an armed escort back to Novgorod.
    Her first order of business was to obtain a set of proper attire. She had become adept at pilfering food from market carts and washing pegged out on lines. A fancy court dress was much more of a challenge.
    In the past, the men of the tribe had taken all her earnings. This handsome mare was for her alone.
    A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The town of Runnymede held its horse fair starting at dawn tomorrow. She would make the sale quickly, then put her plan into motion.
    “Stay here, Pavlo,” she whispered. The large, shaggy dog cast a worried look at her, but lay down and settled his long muzzle between his front paws.
    Crouching low, Juliana approached the horse from the front, slightly to one side. “There, my pretty,” she whispered to warn it of her presence. “You’re a pretty mare, that you are.”
    The horse ceased its browsing in the tufts of clover at the base of the tree. Its nostrils dilated, and Juliana heard the soft huff of its breath. The well-shaped ears lay back.
    Juliana made a low clicking sound with the back of her tongue, and the ears eased up a little. She held out her hand, palm up, offering the horse a pared turnip she had filched from someone’s kitchen garden.
    The mare devoured the raw turnip and nudged Juliana’s hand for more. She smiled.